Perpetuum Mobile
by graver
Summary: It's about not arriving, it's about the journey. / Time gets distorted in this small space of car. She rolls down the window and tries to count the days since they left New York for this perpetuum mobile. / Road trip Peter and Claire, post S1. COMPLETE
1. Chapter: Timeless

**Perpetuum Mobile**

**_It's about not arriving, it's about the journey._**

Rating: PG 13

A/N: Peter/Claire post S1, Peter takes Claire away for safekeeping.

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_Time gets distorted in this small space of car. She rolls down the window and tries to count the days since they left New York for this __perpetuum mobile._

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**Chapter 1: Timeless**

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Their latest and worst quarrel ends in an enduring silence, interrupted by curt replies to inevitable remarks. He's mad and she's hurt. Neither feels guilty enough.

He pulls over at the next gas station. Not so much for fuel as to breathe. He needs to get away from this, her. She gets some cash and buys junk food. She'll spend the next few hours chewing the gum as loudly as she can, blowing red raspberry scented bubbles. He pops one without lifting his hands from the wheel. She glares, picking the gooey red stuff out of her hair.

- - -

She disappears for the night. He could use his powers to bring her back, but there is no point in it. She'll come back when she's better.

He's still angry as he flips the channels, angry with himself. Maybe, this is a bad idea after all.

- - -

At midnight.

She climbs on the rumpled motel linen, filling the void to his left. It is unclear whether he has slept at all, but he looks at her now. Wordlessly, she wraps her arms around his waist, her hot humid breath against his T-shirted shoulder.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

She whimpers a few hot puffs, burning into his shoulder, sounding exactly her age – something she works so hard not to be, something he knows she is.

There is something to this admission that makes his heart sink into a hollow deeper than his insides. He pities her, but then again, that is the point. Maybe, she is looking to fill the same formula, after Noah and the traces of her old family have disappeared, since Nathan is nowhere near to fitting to that role.

He could never be her father. He hates being her uncle. He could cope being her older brother, her closest friend, her confidant, her protector. But this, this is too vague. Unlike his nephews, she is a full-grown woman, nestling against him as if she'd just burnt down her home all over again.

"You need to sleep," he mutters, sliding a warm hand over her back, a gesture of comfort and peace. She sighs, the whiff of air grazing his neck and hair. He holds back an involuntary shiver. It makes him think of the last time he lay like this and he concludes it was with Simone – and not like this at all.

Claire breathes softly, rhythmically.

"You're right."

And she flips around, presses her back, soft and snug, against him, curling her knees close to her chest, and adjusts the covers to meet her waistline.

He watches dumbfounded, as she nuzzles by his side without any hesitation or permission, holding his hand still close to her. He is trapped and slightly amused. Her blond curls tickling his nose, he inhales, considering.

This is definitely far from appropriate – spooning together with your niece in a cheap motel bed – does not really leave much for further interpretation. But there's no one here to find them and no one to care. And he doesn't want to fight any more.

- - -

In his dreams, she's still wearing the red and white uniform. A piece of her fading past. They never talk about the future. And they avoid the past.

- - -

He sleeps remarkably well. When he wakes, there's Claire grinning at him, sprawled on her stomach, facing him with her too visible cleavage the first thing he sees.

"G' morning, Sleepy."

He smiles goofily to hide his discomfort at this mock-intimacy and is relieved to see her giddy and joking.

"You slept well." It's a statement and he assumes she's been watching him.

"Yeah, and you?"

"You snored a bit." She's teasing, but he ends it quickly.

"Well, your bed is right over there."

She looks hurt and it's yesterday all over again. He bites his tongue.

- - -

Time gets distorted in this small space of car. She rolls down the window and tries counting days since they left New York for this _perpetuum mobile_. She yawns lazily and looks at Peter. His elbow is resting on the window and his T-shirt is brilliantly white in the sun.

She skims his hair and settles on eight weeks.

- - -

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"

Chops of dark hair spill on the towel, dark as her father's. Her _real_ father's.

"Relax."

Her tongue appears in the corner of her mouth as she drives the scissors along the nape of his neck.

"Keep still."

It proves hard. The scrape of cold metal in contrast to her warm fingers, she's raking them through his hair possessively, assessing her work, and it seems she is rather pleased so far or simply amused with the outcome.

"You need to start trusting me."

- - -

It's noon. It's 96 F and the air conditioner is on full blast. He's discarded his sweat stained shirt and lies on his bed, apparently half-dead.

Claire endures it better. The room is still stuffy, but outside, it is even worse.

Peter is sound asleep. She bends over him, studies his face. She knows she's creeping him out when she does that, but then she flashes one of her girly smiles and he discards the uneasiness as his own issue.

This time he doesn't wake up. Suddenly, a thought crosses her mind and she blushes. But he keeps on sleeping. She draws closer, lips against his, her heart pounding that he might wake up. She wants to know. That's all.

With a jolt of terror she discovers that his eyes are open. That he, fully aware all the time, was just pretending to be asleep.

_I'm just curious_.

And he lets her, for this one time's sake.

- - -

The night has cooled the intolerable blaze and she sighs into the wind as it tousles, rustles in her hair and she sticks her head into the warm summer dusk. Her voice is lighter, too light, he notices.

Something has become brittle, as if a few layers have rubbed off, worn thin.

He doesn't mention the strange burn in his bowels and she disregards her shaky hands. They always heal, eventually.


	2. Chapter: Sand and Prints and Payphones

**Perpetuum Mobile**

A/N: Thanks to Britnik and Starwatcher123 for the motivation, much appreciated : ) I hope it's a good companion to the first part.

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_She hates the reddish sand on the other side of their caddy, hates the day they gained a direction, away from something, towards something else. Somehow, the dimensions are narrowed by this._

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**Chapter 2: Sand and Prints and Payphones**

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They're at the payphone at a random stop number seventy-something and he's dialing the number as her chin falls. Something bad is gnawing at her insides and she's sure it's about to reach her heart and lungs.

But what the hell, right? She's the regenerating girl. Surely a heart can grow back and lungs are overrated anyway. He's the superman.

"Hey."

He strokes her chin – just like _that_ – and wills her to look up, face him. But the feeling doesn't disappear anywhere.

She drills her eyes into him, _but she can't really read minds, you know._

- - -

"Yeah, uhm…. I need a favor."

He rests his forehead against the apparatus that isn't filled with quarters, dimes, and nickels, one that isn't supposed to work in the first place. His dark hair spills loose from his ear and she thinks she's cut too far. Doesn't tell it though. He'd deny it anyway.

She presses her fingers into the metal frame, draws blood and remembers the feeling. She wants to scratch her name and date into it, leave a mark. Just to prove herself and to the rest of the world that she's been here. Anywhere, as it is now.

- - -

"You think it's gonna work?"

"'Has to," he bites into his egg sandwich and ignores that this, in fact, isn't an answer.

- - -

She hates the reddish sand on the other side of their caddy, hates the day they gained a direction, away from something, towards something else. Somehow, the dimensions are narrowed by this.

- - -

She's gaping as he sees him, in that outrageously flaring Hawaii shirt, dark glasses and wearing that silly straw hat as if he's to mock all the stereotypes of an American vacation all at once.

_Sylar._

The way they're all sitting at the plastic table, he and Peter and her, much like the last time, only, this is ridiculous in so many ways.

"How's the wound?"

"Healing," he says and she can swear he almost winks at her.

- - -

The rest is silence. Well, not really. There's always the heavy sound of the engine and grovel under the wheels and the deafening blare of him being quiet.

It was unnecessary. He disagrees.

- - -

Past midday, she sits on the end of his bed, massaging his scalp, his hair impossibly dark, one of the thousand ways he is not like her. And it should be enough.

He lifts the bottle of beer from the floor and drowns half of its contents in a single gulp. He needs it. Just like she needed that dent on the phone booth.

- -

In the end, it's like a merry-go-round. The one she used to go on, with her father waving, in the summer, at the fair. But this is the past. She thinks abut Hiro and how he can change the time and space continuum and how they're so effectively trapped in it. Come to think of it, Peter should be able to do this as well.

­

But he never does it. There's a long list of things he could, but won't.

-

He's almost passed out from the alcohol and she has power over him. She traces the landscape of his face, gently gliding her fingers over him, imitating their road trip that went farther than they expected. He looks at her, silently begging her not to. She flashes an excited, vengeful smile. There is a number of things she can do, things she will, if given a chance.

She's got powers, too. He remembers it now.

She kisses his jawline, his mouth, willing him to open. He feels impossibly weak, giving in. She opens a button of his shirt, sliding a hand underneath and he wishes dimly that he wouldn't remember any of this by the morning.

- - -

She shivers from the chilliness of the dawn as it hits them in the parking lot, they throw their bags on the backseat. He squints at the sun and pulls out his sunglasses.

She gets in, two bronzed slender legs, and slams the door shut as she settles at the steering wheel.

"I want to drive this time." He nods and occupies her seat instead. And forgets the safety belt.


	3. Chapter: The Bullet You Never Took

**Perpetuum Mobile**

A/N: The third installment. I wanted to update sooner, but there were some technical issues. Thanks for your support and enjoy!

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_Out of their three cars, she loved this one the most._

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**Chapter 3: The Bullet You Never Took**

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A patrol pulls them over one day, when she's more than sure they haven't been speeding this time. In fact, they have been slowing down steadily. And now they're at a halt.

Peter hands him his driving license and taps the steer impatiently.

The officer is a beer belly and a pair of mustache. He eyes her, suspicious. There's a gun on his left side and she remembers one right down under her seat.

When the _'young lady' _produces her ID, it says she's nineteen. She pleaded for one with a 21 but he only laughed and said it was a bit farfetched.

_You kids are a long way from home. _Peter gives her a long look and she does not know what it means.

- - -

He forgot about her birthday. She forgot about his privacy.

Claire has learned that the Petrellis are all about mistakes, and making it even.

- - -

The blonde waitress finishes with her soft drawl and disappears altogether with that apron and pristine, painfully white blouse. His eyes return to her, amused. She fits here, more than anything else. Her accent takes on a sonorous lilt and she can almost make him believe they're a random couple in an ice-cream bar.

He falls in love with this image of her, golden gleam against the bright red of leather seats and shiny plastic menus that promise you _the wonders of sweetness that can change your life_.

Claire wiggles the lined straw in the jumbo mix of everything sugary, pieces of crushed ice rustling with her activity and makes another attempt at getting him to taste it.

Her eyes glimmer and she fidgets on her seat, her dangling feet brushing his leg occasionally, but she doesn't apologize. And he doesn't mind.

- - -

It's out there in the fields and their car is out of reach. Claire rips her stare from her dusty white sneakers up to his expectant face. She does not want to do this; moreover, he shouldn't be asking her to do this. For everything it means.

"_Claire, come on, how are you ever gonna protect yourself?"_

The pistol weighs her down and she raises it back to her line of sight.

"Just focus. And shoot."

He ignores the flashbacks and prepares himself for the bang and the darting metal. She still doesn't act. What is this – some twisted exercise of trust? To be able to fall in order to be saved.

A loud clap and a bullet falls in the dust.

He flinches and straightens: a mark of red on his T-shirt like a dart board. It looks bizarre and it feels morbid.

"A shoulder. Good. Now, aim at the heart."

- - -

He's there, waiting, leaning against the car with his hands crossed, penitent. She can't forgive him this time. But she already has.

There's nothing else to be done.

- - -

Her arms are strong as she reaches out to him, winds them tight around his neck, careful not to hit the gearshift with her knee. He lets her. She is entitled to it. And she's come to claim it.

It's impossible that she's still shaking while the naked sun is close to turning him into a pool of sweat and breath and vapor. Soft and harsh, she plants the words in his ear.

"You're cruel in strange ways."

The voice catches a little. He swallows it, kissing her tanned arm.

"I know," he admits, blankly, "it runs in the family."

- - -

"We are what we do," Claire says once and he wonders if he's an atomic bomb or a sponge.

- - -

They watch with a gnawing regret as their blue Chevy drives away, them not inside it. Out of their three cars, she loved this one the most.

He hitches their sack up on his shoulder and turns towards the station, hand brushing her lower back.

"Guess we'll have to stick to buses, for a while," he notes. She sighs and wishes they would stop selling out.


	4. Chapter: Keep Your Ticket till the End

**Perpetuum Mobile**

A/N: Hey again. It's going pretty fast so far, even though the parts themselves are relatively short. It started as a sequence of some possibly stand-alone one-shots, so there's a list of things I need to follow to keep it together. (Every other chapter goes to the thrash can, but I'm working on how to bring them back in.) Until then, enjoy, I love your reviews :)

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_It's all metaphorical. The lines, the road, their hands entwined. He can say the word and it stops, or unsay it and leave it flowing towards the end._

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**Chapter 4: Keep Your Ticket till the End**

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Her legs are crooked, knees resting against the window as the landscape passes by. The book lies forgotten on her lap. There's an odd peace between them, after the struggle.

She feels a small bump of scarred skin on the inside of his otherwise perfect thumb. Some incision, a knife perhaps.

"Did this hurt?"

He looks down to her, hair spilled in his lap, and thinks, recalling.

"I don't remember," he mutters truthfully and rakes the hand through the flowing honey.

- - -

Sometimes, it's easier to lie.

He has got used to everyone seeing them as a couple, a modest one, but still a couple. They no longer try to explain and force the reality on it.

People keep offering them double beds and he knows she wouldn't mind. But he draws the line here.

- - -

She tells him it's her birthday

He is duly surprised, preparing an apology.

"Relax. Actually, it was two months ago." Her grin is wicked, searching.

He promises her anything she could ever wish for. The irony is that everything is out of reach.

- - -

He sneaks in, late at night, sets the paper bag in the middle of the floor as she peels it down, revealing a bottle of bourbon standing erect.

Peter scratches his head, feeling like a true badass and a criminal. She's happy though, talks about Europe and how she'd be drinking beer since the infancy had she been raised in Germany.

He chuckles at this mental image and decides that French would suit her better.

- -

The laughter grows louder and he worries about the people sleeping down the hallway. He has agreed to this and, for once, he decides to keep his word.

"I've been dying to find out if rapid cellular regeneration covers hangovers." She slurs, hazily, on the floor, finger drawing circles around his knee.

"You can inform Mohinder once you've found out," he says, unthinking. Cause after giving it a moment's thought, this is not a good idea at all.

- -

Turns out it doesn't. They both moan, blank-faced and sick, and infinitely glad he doesn't need to drive any more.

- - -

He hugs her, in the bus stop, as the vehicle drives in. They get on and he twiddles the dollars between his fingers while the driver is fumbling with the tickets.

"Here you go, Peter."

He freezes, calculating the chances of jumping off now, but Claire is gone from his side, waving at him from the seats at the back. He exhales, knowing.

"Thank you, Sam." He passes the row of Melissas and Kates, nudging a Derek, incidentally.

She asks if he's okay. He says he's changed again.

- - -

It's a pact of truces and ceasefires and they don't remember who started the war in the first place. He considers himself a pacifist. Then she makes her charge.

- - -

It's all metaphorical. The lines, the road, their hands entwined. He can say the word and it stops, or unsay it and leave it flowing towards the end. She conforms.

And then there's the real stuff, Nathan asking them to return home as soon as the air is clear. Some vague reports of Noah Bennet insisting he can do better. It feels treacherous, to keep her, based on family ties that he doesn't own up to and neither does she. She's said she's safe with him and he wishes she were right this time.

- - -

"She's underage, ain't she?" Peter glares, annoyed with another host with an especially sharp eye. He signs the paper, the name not quite his own, and turns.

"Don't worry, son. Met my wife when she was sixteen. Never been a happier marriage."

He nods, and leaves, lighter and heavier than before.

- - -

The news from her step-father slips on and off his mind, but he's on mute and in reality she hears nothing.

- - -

Another car passes, lights flash at them and they sink back into the darkness. They have been waiting for two hours by now. The soft hum of radio is barely audible and it seems to his racing mind as mere minutes.

She watches him, cheek pressed against the glove compartment, tired, but eyes full awake.

"You do know," she begins, as if she's able to tell, "You can't own me. I'm here only because I choose to."

And just then, another pair of headlights pulls over, shedding unbearable light on their faces before the engine turns off. The door opens and a man steps out, the name of his precious Claire on the lips.


	5. Chapter: A Sense of Direction

**Perpetuum Mobile**

A/N: It's far too easy to dip them neck-deep into the dark pool of angst a parallel image of cherries and liquid chocolate pops into mind, but I'm determined to keep them fixed in the drama/romance section. I had to introduce a foreign element for a short while to make it progress a little. Stick with me (there's more to come) and don't hesitate to share your opinion :)

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_They're spiraling down, still unable to reach the bottom. He opens his eyes, sees her driving, and blinks them shut again, her outlines etched in his retina._

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**Chapter 5: A Sense of Direction**

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Peter studies the map, strands of his dark hair untangling, coming to hover above the list of miles and numbers. They must be somewhere, underneath. Claire recognizes the signs of agitation, unable to reach out, to touch, to reassure, and Bennet's voice on the backseat doesn't help at all.

"Who goes on an expedition when they can't even read the map?"

"Dad." A protest from the front. Neither notices.

"There's no sign of it," Peter huffs and lets the older man grab the paper from him, scanning eagerly over the fine network of lines. _It can't be._

- - -

He promises himself never. But he knows how it goes. Nevers turn into maybes, then to sometimes and on to _oh shit it's there_.

- - -

Peter slouches in the shade, helping himself to a cold beer and lets Claire have the wheel for a change. The wind blows lightly, something musky in the air and he wonders if he has already happened to meet someone with a superhuman sense of smell. Now, that would be highly unnecessary.

He knows by now that everything he picks up may not become useful one day. Usually, the realization dawns when you already have your pockets full.

- - -

Noah is a smart man. He doesn't trust him, and Peter gives him extra credit for that.

The man's voice can't mask his affection as he takes in her account of things happened, an account that – as Peter hears it through the layers of metal and walls – is missing some of the central pieces, knots in the thread of time they use to hang on to. There's something he can't take.

- - -

She uses the u-word if she wishes to hurt. The n-word isn't quite as effective, but he can call her a teenager. The truth hits them just the same.

- - -

In the lamplight, he is crouched against the headboard, her head on his stomach, together forming a neat T on the unslept bed.

She's crying, soundless, but he can tell by her breathing.

_He paints her the future, an adorned one. He tells her of the home she'll have, not in Odessa, but somewhere just like it. She'll have her own bed, with sheets that smell like her own and she'll be able to wake up there, each morning, not worrying about packing or running out of gas or being stuck waiting at the stations. _

His voice is low, gently rumbling over the hot spots of her mind. She possesses his left arm, her lips carefully traveling down the softness on his vessels and veins, up to the bumpy terrain of his knuckles – they'd need a jeep – to the roughness of the other side. His abs tense, heaving her head an inch, as she sums it up with a full kiss on the inside of his elbow.

- - -

"I don't mind going, perhaps never arriving. But you have to give me a direction."

- - -

_He tells her lies instead, the sweeter ones. He tells her of the streets he's walked only once in his life, some sweet fragrance clinging to the air, as they pass a line of cafés. _

_He'd have her dressed in a black evening gown and take her to the Opera, lets himself get drunk on her laughter, full and sweet, when he tells her the true meaning of that lush-sounding French word._

He feeds her with promises, on their empty stomachs, the lunch neither could force down this afternoon.

- - -

It has happened before, either in his dreams or reality. Or both, in that order.

She leaves him, pushed a little, by him. To get her. Going. Do the right thing, babe. The blue rental car swallows her whole.

He's stuck in the doorway, as if she's taken his ability to move.

- - -

He's looking for the fastest way to NY. There is no ghost of Claire appearing on the seats of airplanes, like it does in the cars and buses.

- - -

A strange knock, he shuts his mind to all hope and opens.

It's her, materialized before him, panting heavily, hopelessly sweaty and smeared, having nothing but her slightly stained clothes with her. She chews on her lip, relieved and nervous.

"I got robbed," she offers with a weak wave of hands, attaching them permanently around his waist.

He closes his eyes, watching the perspectives crumble.

- - -

They're spiraling down, still unable to reach the bottom. He opens his eyes, sees her driving and blinks them shut again, her outlines still visible on his retina.

- - -

The privacy of their own car gapes around them.

Claire shifts, preparing to launch them into the dimness of yet another endless road, knowing full well where it's headed. She meets his eyes, recognizing the persisting question within. The vehicle grumbles as she changes the gear.

The stars wink in the clear desert air. She lets it fall, crash on the ground, then lifts it up again.


	6. Chapter: Baptism in Fire

**Perpetuum Mobile**

A/N: Next one will be the final one. Chapter 7 almost ready.

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_She bends back, over the edge, ripping the mosquito net, trying to crack the mystery that holds it together, see the future in it._

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**Chapter 6: Baptism in Fire**

The Petrelli is burning pitch black, licking at the edges of Peter, his face melts, distorted. Claire watches with a tinge of pity and asks why they can't keep any of it. He throws their last passport in the fire, turning.

"There's no time."

- - -

They've traveled close to 200 miles, mostly invisible during that time. She sits there, at the back of the truck, wondering if she exists at all or is it just a dream in limbo.

"It gets to you after a while." He's been listening in on her again. A soft touch brushing over her arm, like a wind, and not really there.

"And then what?" she yields, watching the sand whirl from the wheels and fall behind.

"Then you come back."

The song lyrics about dying thousand deaths don't seem nearly as romantic once it's attainable. It has taken her belief in the afterlife and any other form of providence.

- - -

"_You put too much fuel in it and it explodes,"_ he instructs. _"You put too little and it dies out."_

- - -

She stands in the lazy yawn of mid-August, hand shielding the sun. The dress flaps around her knees and she reminds him of Meredith. He's only seen her once.

- - -

They've made a great progress, she declares, while stopping in a small town for supplies. Peter is tired, vaguely remembering Nathan's speech on private jets and he thinks he understands it now.

He wonders if there's going to be a family gathering or a simple ceremony, accepting her to the flock.

- - -

After another report from Dr. Suresh, she reads the paper, over and over again. Taking it in and letting it escape in a single extended breath.

He looms behind her, their contours falling dark on the earth.

"I don't need eternity if there's nothing in it."

He thinks, figuring ways to make it look better, while the truth is, he's not ready for it either.

"Nothing is forever."

- - -

They've heard it coming, heard the deluge and lived under the constant fear of it. Now they face it, the panic in his eyes is draining with the flush.

"_He's dead."_

She looks up, wondering what next. They've fulfilled their goal. At least some of it. They're both alive. Free. Somehow it stings.

- - -

Their car rushes – maybe too fast, he doesn't know, can't see the speedometer, can't bring his eyes to meet her. And yet, all that fills his mind is the vision of that particular part of her anatomy. Finally, he coughs, clearing his voice and ventures, weakly.

"Does your father know about that tattoo?"

"Which one?"

He knows she's not talking about the fathers.

- - -

That night, she stops him. Catches him off guard and leads him to the shrine of her bed. She bends back, over the edge, ripping the mosquito net, trying to crack the mystery that holds it together, see the future in it.

It's almost saintly silence, for doing something so sinful, they lift and turn together, feeling too good and it makes him feel all evil about it.

He remembers it, records it, hides it from himself.

Her pale kneecap against his ribcage in the moonlight and a wreathing mass of limbs and muscles and expanses of soft skin rubbing against each other. Urge melting into ecstasy and then into blind nothingness.

- - -

The blame is ambiguous, difficult to pin down. She changes a word and it changes the whole sentence.

- - -

They need time. Breakfast and two airline tickets lie untouched on the table. He sips his coffee, waiting for her to lift her eyes, but she doesn't. And that's how it's going to be.

There's not much to pack. The clothes of summer stay behind, useless and worn. They'll get new ones, once they arrive.


	7. Chapter: Evening Glow

**Perpetuum Mobile**

A/N: The conclusion. A week's tale, as it turns out, and I can finally resume with my real life. Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed it like I did.

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_Peter rushes off to save the world, she stays here amidst the test tubes, chemicals, and graphs._

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**Chapter 7: Evening Glow**

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New York flips her world around. The horizon becomes vertical instead of landscape, she feels dizzy and unreal, gazing at the skyscrapers. Peter shuts the door of the cab and grabs her hand possessively, forgetting that she's already been here before, alone, with a single name and a piece of paper before her. And she made it, sort of.

- - -

Yes, she is a cheerleader. All masks aside, she's but a human will and enough stubbornness to go on. She gets a thousand chances, trying them out until one of them fits. Then clings to it.

- - -

Mohinder eyes them with a passing look of sympathy, like he is guessing already. Peter rushes off to save the world, she stays here amidst the test tubes, chemicals, and graphs.

"I have a theory," he begins, faking nonchalance, "that it is no way a coincidence that your parents – and your grandparents in turn – have both such great abilities."

She looks at him, absent, but listening.

"My theory is that there is a general attraction between those with the mutated genes, like in species, looking for someone of their kind."

"So it's really not their fault they're drawn to one another?"

"No. But they have to face the consequences." The vial drops. "Each generation concentrates the troubles of the preceding ones."

- - -

Maybe it's not the sound after all, not the smell, but reality. Masses of people, heaps of bodies and flesh, so insignificant yet all-important when in singular. They course through them, unable to define the relations of anything, not even the closest around them.

- - -

"What did you think, Claire?" It's a sneer, an outright sneer, and she swears she will stick another sword in him if he doesn't stop it soon. "You hoped he'd be playing Bonnie and Clyde with you forever?"

"Shut_ up_!"

She watches him wiggle in his straps, amused and cruel, wondering why death evades him so persistently and keeps following the others.

"Aah… In that case, the good thing is–"

"That's enough, Sylar." Mohinder injects the needle, crimson drops following. For once, the vice is silent, sleeping like a baby.

- - -

There's a pool of blood, more like an ocean – Pacific, if you follow the shape. Peter sits on its shores, thinking how many times the same scene has recurred. There's a raw smell of mortality around and he is stuck to his reflection in red.

"Come on, there's nothing left for you here." A hand on his shoulder, one that knows too well. The police are wrapping it up in sulfur-yellow and black, finding nothing extraordinary in it. _You have to leave, Peter._

- - -

"This chart shows heightened activity in the lower parts of your brain, which are considered slightly more… primitive and ancient. Parts which are very important for reptiles."

Claire giggles, overhearing it by chance. Sylar raises his head, agitated.

"So, Dr. Suresh, I'm a crocodile now?"

"No, but you can act like one."

- - -

He watches her, through the glass, she's hiding behind a book, genealogy, anticipating his return. She looks as if she's about to find a cure to the cancer. He knows there is none.

"_Peter!"_ She rushes out to him, her hands piercing the general numbness and yet not quite.

- - -

In the first time in weeks – months perhaps, she hears the rain, cool and moist, rattling away on the roofs and sidewalk, the air fresh and clean. It purifies, washes off the roads of dust and sand from her shoes, his dark overcoat is wrapped around her, all him and hers.

- - -

"Why so desperate to find him, anyway?" Sylar slurs, head tilted and mildly intrigued.

"I need to talk to him." A dainty finger tapping into the table, irritated. It's dark and light in the apartment although barely two hours past noon.

"I thought he could hear you from miles away."

"He's not listening right now."

- - -

In the end, it's just flashes of images, tied together by words and thoughts. The rest is logic and explaining it to your baffled mind.

- - -

The station is crowded and hollow. He heaves his rucksack, clutches the ticket. There is a picture of Claire, tucked in his pocket, and Nathan in the other one.

It all begins as running away with someone, then it's running away from them. He hears her footfall and steps on the bus.

* * *

**The End.**


End file.
